


Only Wait

by voleuse



Category: Battlestar Galactica
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-28
Updated: 2005-07-28
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:04:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Distrust everything if you have to. But trust the hours.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Wait

**Author's Note:**

> Post-1.12 AU. Title and summary adapted from Galway Kinnell's _Wait_.

He wants to get off the planet. He points a gun to her head and tells her so.

He can smell her blood. He tells himself it's just motor oil.

He recognizes the look in her eyes, but he tells himself that's not real, either.

*

 

He lets her wrap her arm properly, tosses his jacket in her direction and pretends it never happened.

Between bouts of hating her, he wonders what effects radiation might have on the thing she says is growing inside her.

He wonders if it might benefit, being part-toaster and all.

He doesn't want to call it a baby, because he likes kids. He used to have a nephew, used to play catch when he visited.

A familiar drone reaches his ears, and he looks up to see a speck in the sky, drawing dark and near.

She tells him to run, and he does.

*

 

Days pass, and they run, and they hide. It's the same as before, he thinks, except he's not in love with her now, and it doesn't rain as much anymore.

They break into a school cafeteria, forage through the storage cabinets and refrigerator. There's pastries, some tinned meat. He eats, and at her glare, slides over to allow her access, too.

It's all stale and dry, but it takes the edge off the gnawing in his belly. He's almost forgotten what a meal tastes like. She tears into her food as if starved.

"Funny," he lets the thought slip out, "I didn't know robots got hungry."

She stops, stares at him. Lifts a pastry to her mouth and takes a deliberate bite.

He tries not to look at her lips.

*

 

He's too tired to keep running and too tired to keep watch. There's been no sign of their pursuers for a few hours, and she says she thinks they'll be safe.

He laughs, short and sharp, but doesn't comment. He finds a small classroom, one wall a draped window, and exits in two ends.

He orders her to a corner, secures her to a support pillar with a bicycle chain he found two cities ago. Points a gun at her head meaningfully, then leans against a wall and drowses.

It's not ideal, but nothing ever will be.

He wakes to hear her crying, and automatically, he crouches, shuffles across the floor. Puts his arms around her, whispers nonsense into her hair.

And then he remembers.

But he can't let go.

*

 

At daybreak, he yanks the chain from her wrists, pulls her up.

"We should move," he says.

She nods, rubs at her wrists. "Same direction, I think."

"Right."

He forgets the chain on the classroom floor.

*

 

Three towns past, and they eat preserves found in a farmhouse cellar.

Night is falling, and he's ready to fall asleep on his feet.

For a second, he sways, braces his hand against the wall.

He can't remember how many more vials of anti-radiation meds he has left.

"I can keep watch," she says from where she's seated.

He turns his head to her before he remembers to raise the gun. "No."

"Helo, you have to rest." She leans her head against the wall, looks at him like she cares.

He puts his shoulder to the wall, turns to face her. "I'm fine."

"Of course you are." She watches him as he slides to the floor.

He doesn't answer her. Instead, he blinks, and can't bring himself to open his eyes again.

She won't leave him, he thinks. And she hasn't killed him yet.

That'll have to be enough, and if it isn't?

He's not sure it matters anymore.

*

 

He wakes to sunlight streaming down the stairwell. The smell of dirt and sticky syrup, and her lips trailing over his throat.

"Sharon?" he murmurs, and she kisses him, slips a hand inside the collar of his flight suit. Her hand is cool against his skin, and he twitches. She laughs, darts her tongue to the corner of his mouth.

He wants her, wants _Sharon_, enough to believe this far, at least.

She unzips her own flight suit, and he pushes it off her shoulders, off her hips. Arches up and twists as she does the same for him, and soon they're skin against skin.

He closes his eyes and pretends this is happening, that it's real.

She moans his name, a sharp gasp and wail. Her name is a prayer on his lips, because he'll never get a chance to explain.

She rests her head against his chest, and he strokes his hand over her back.

"You're not her," he says.

She doesn't bother to reply.

*

 

A week passes by, then two, a cycle of denial and acceptance he paces like punishment.

It's like something out of the scriptures, he thinks. Pushing the boulder up the hill, stretching to pluck the fruit from the tree.

In the morning hours, he reaches for her to slake himself, and ends up only yearning.

He's missing something, he thinks. Something important, but he can't pinpoint amid the endless litany.

Everything's lost, anyway.

*

 

One morning, he wakes to the sound of her weeping.

He blinks sleepily at her, wondering.

By chance, he drops his gaze, follows the line of her arm where it curves against her belly.

Her belly, still flat. They've been fleeing for weeks, and she looks exactly the same.

"You're not," he states, and doesn't need to complete the thought, because the look in her eyes confirms it.

"I thought," she starts, then stops. Tries again. "I thought we would be the--"

He gropes for the gun, points it at her head.

"Helo," she says. She's crying, and he tells himself it's just motor oil.

He tells her to get up, and she does.

He injects himself with the last of the meds, tells himself they'll find another cache in the next city.

"I'm hungry," she says.

He diverts his aim slightly, fires into a wall.

She narrows her eyes at him. "I really believed it, Helo."

He breathes deep. "So did I." A last confession, but it's not to her. "Let's go."

And they run.


End file.
